HIIT: Is It Worth It?

 High intensity interval training (HIIT) is it worth it? This is a training technique that should last about 20 to 30 minutes. Doing it for longer brings risks, but is doable for the advanced athlete. 

Typically windsprints and Tabata drills are what comes to mind with HIIT. Personally, I like these styles of training. These are fast, full body, effective techniques. These, and other styles or routines, do bring inherent risks. These risks can be dealt with as your ability increases. 

Let’s first look at some of the risks of such training. Primarily, due to the force being exerted tendon and muscle injuries are possible. Warm ups are highly recommended. Stretching afterwards is also helpful in avoiding pain and injury. 

Like any good thing, too much can be harmful. Cortisol, a stress hormone, builds up rapidly. This can be dealt with through nutrition. You want to have adequate antioxidants in your diet. Antioxidants will scavenge both free-radicals and cortisol. This results in less point workout pain, or delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). 

Joint injuries are also a risk. Focusing on form is going to mitigate this risk. Proper form, in all exercise techniques and styles, is paramount. There are videos, articles, trainer advice, coaching and more available for how to perform an exercise and routine. Please, take advantage of all resources. Also, talk to your doctor so any physical concerns can be addressed. I ease into new exercises so I can listen to my body and how it responds to the new stress. Form, as stated, is the goal, the right movement for body type and structure. As with any skill, practice makes better.

Now, why do HIIT? This type of training maximizes fat loss, builds muscle, and does this in a minimum amount of time. I like the long workouts, I get that. Sometimes those are not possible due to time constraints. 10, 15, 20 minutes of a full body high intensity cycle can fit the bill. At my last job I’d have an hour for lunch. I would spend that time in the gym. I had only an hour. Some of you may have this constraint as well. 

Most workouts should take 30 minutes minimum. This is how long a body takes to start burning fat under moderate intensity. For HIIT you need a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes. The difference has to do with HIIT using larger proportions of muscle to complete. Tabata Runs are a perfect example. You run hard, 80 to 90 percent of maximum effort, do 20 seconds. Then walk/jog for 10 seconds. This pattern is done for eight cycles or four minutes. Muscle engagement in this is far more intense than a moderate jog for 30 minutes. 

Look at your endurance athletes versus sprinters. Which has a more muscular build? Sprinters are far more muscular overall than distance runners. This is due to how the body is used and the relative intensity over the duration of the exercise. 

Being a full body, or near full body, event makes for effective and efficient workouts. These type of workouts burn fat rapidly while conducting them. The fat burn is more than extended periods of moderate intensity workouts. Say, jogging at a moderate pace in comparison to HIIT. You will burn more calories in HIIT in 20 minutes than 30 minutes of jogging. This also improves your cardiovascular health at a quicker rate. 

Equipment is a minimum. I use my porch and a door frame pull-up bar. You can essentially do these workouts at the local park as easily in your garage. A pull-up bar is not going to break the bank. I have jogged to my local park, used the equipment there for pulling and for dips, and then walked back. All I had to give was the time and dedication to do the exercises. 

In the beginning you will want to start at 10 to 20 minutes. These are intense workouts and will push you to your limits. Advanced athletes can handle more time like an hour. 

Why Burpees?

 I’ve recently posted a Burpee workout routine and some variations to work on. The question I want to look at is why. Why Burpees?

Burpees are a High Intensity Functional Traing (HIFT) technique that is a nearly full body plyometric exercise. 

What this means, in short, is that it’s pushing your cardio to maximal or near maximal levels for the duration of the exercise. It is as effective as box jumps for lower body training as box jumps, but without the box. Less equipment is great. 

This exercise will torch body fat. You’re employing almost all of your muscles to complete this event. I add pull-ups and chin-ups to finish that card out. Think about it, Burpees are using at least two thirds of your major muscle groups in the squatting, planking, pushing movements. This movement, or series of movements, works the chest, shoulders, triceps, core, quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. Adding pulling movements is simple logic. In ten, fifteen, twenty minutes or so all major muscle groups have been stressed as well as the supporting muscles. 

It is plain to see how through consistent training in these will torch body fat over a few weeks. Pushing your cardio at near maximal levels will also increase your overall aerobic capacity. 

These are intense movements. If you do not have access to a running track you can substitute one minute of Burpees for a 400 meter run. I bring in running as an illustration and a comparison. Moderate intensity jogging can be performed for a far greater time interval than Burpees. Due to this time factor jogging can and will burn more fat during the event; however, due to post exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) your body continues to burn fat at an accelerated rate as compared to jogging. 

30 minutes of Burpees will burn more fat and tighten your waist line faster than jogging. Time constraints are real for many people. At the beginning of a routine based on Burpees you cannot expect to get one every 10-15 seconds. Not could a beginner expect to go out and jog for 30-45 minutes and not gas out and walk from time to time. My point here is to start, stick with it, and your capacity will increase. In a few weeks of regular training you will find that you have gone from doing three or four Burpees at the start to 10 or 20 before having to pause to catch your breath. 

In conclusion, Burpees are hard training but with fast results. You will lose body fat and gain both physical and cardio capabilities. 

Before you start doing these cold talk to your physician first. Make sure that you are medically ready to begin a fitness plan. 

Train hard. Train happy.

Burpees Revisited

 It may be odd to enjoy Burpees, yet we exist. There are many of us who enjoy the mental and physical challenge of these exercises. In this piece we will look at Burpees and consider the calories burnt per cycle or rep. I will also present you a challenge to make Burpees more difficult and add a sort of drop set mentality to them. 

First, how many calories burned per Burpee? The precise answer will vary based upon your body weight and current fitness level. If you have not done these before talk to your doctor before beginning an exercise program. Now, calories burned at 150 pounds body weight is about .5-1 calorie per full cycle. Online information shows that a 125 pound person will burn approximately 8 calories for 20 Burpees. Doing your Burpees faster will burn more calories per rep. Also, us heavier people will burn more calories per rep than the 125 or 150 pound person.

That does not take into consideration the post exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Due to this being a high intensity interval training (HIIT) tool you can comfortably know that your caloric consumption for the next 24 hours has increased. This is good stuff. 

The Basic Exercise 

A Burpee, if you haven’t done them, is a series of connected movements that will use almost your entire muscular system. A basic Burpee goes as follows:

1. Squat and put your hands on the floor
2. Kick your feet back into a plank
3. Do a pushup
4. Quickly bring your feet to their previous position
5. Stand quickly or jump
6. Repeat

Doing these are challenging enough, but we are going to amp up the challenge. Try it as an 8 Count Bodybuilder:

1. Squat and put your hands on the floor
2. Kick your feet back into a plank
3. Bounce lightly and spread your feet to at least shoulders width
4. Bounce lightly and bring your feet together
5. Do a pushup (this is considered two movements, the negative stroke and the positive)
6. Quickly bring your feet to their previous position
7. Stand quickly or jump
8. Repeat

But, wait! There’s more! Now that you’ve done some Burpees and a few 8 Count Bodybuilders, try this, the SEAL Burpee as I’ve seen it:

1. Squat and put your hands on the floor
2. Kick your feet back into a plank
3. Do a pushup
4. Bring your right knee towards your left elbow
5. Do a pushup
6. Bring your left knee towards your right elbow
7. Do a pushup
8. Quickly bring your feet to their previous position
9. Stand quickly and complete three squats
10. Repeat

We can add pullups and chinups, which is something I do. For every pushup I do one pullup or chinup. The math is simple on the first two examples it’s a one to one ratio. Well, even in the third one it’s a one to one ratio for push and pull. It just gets difficult doing math after a few reps. 

Say you do ten of the third example, the SEAL Burpees, you still do three chinups or pullups per pushup. Each one of these requires three pulling exercises. If, like me, you cannot perform that many pullups and chinups cheat. Cheating on reps is permissible under the Weider Principles. You can hop or jump up to get to the top position of the pullup. You then hold it for as long as you can or ten seconds, whichever is longer. Then lower yourself to the bottom slowly. This is accentuating the negatives. 

Cheat reps and negatives will quickly build your strength up to where you’re cranking out the reps. Using exercise bands is also an option. 

Bonus Suggestion 

To put these into a drop set sequence you start with the SEAL Burpees to failure. Then, continue with the 8 Count variation. Finish with the standard Burpee. 

Cardiovascular and Calisthenics

 Heart and lungs or musculature. Which is more important? training both are equally important in my opinion. Cardio trains the heart and lungs to deliver oxygen to the body and brain more efficiently. Calisthenics train the body through functional strength to operate more efficiently. 

Both exercise systems release endorphins. These are quite simply the feel good chemicals that can flood your brain. The training as well as the results bring positive feelings. 

There are nearly as many cardiovascular events you can undertake as there are muscular events. Training is often limited by your imagination. Some routines are an hour or more long while others are unbelievably short but promise massive changes.

You have limited time and almost no equipment. What are you supposed to do? You need something, a routine, that will hit your entire body as well as work your heart and lungs. What do you do? 

First, check with your doctor to make sure your body can handle what I’m suggesting. Always, doctor first. 

With that done you will do three exercises to hit your cardio and muscular systems. That’s it, three things. 

First, you will do a half mile to a mile of jogging/fast walking. Ideally this will take you to a park. If not, it should bring you back home to a pull-up bar. 

Once at the bar you are going to do a full body exercise. These are called Body Builders. You will do a Burpee, but with a pull-up or chin-up. These will work your full body including your abs to a degree. 

There are a large number of videos out there on how to do Burpees. Still, I can detail the exercises in them here.

1. squat down and put your hands on the ground or mat.
2. Kick your feet back so you are in a plank position. 
3. Do a push-up.
4. Quickly bring your feet back to your hands.
5. Jump up.
6. Grab a monkey bar or your pull-up bar and do either a chin-up or a pull-up. 
7. Repeat for as many repetitions as you can.
8. Do whatever abdominal exercise you prefer to failure

If you are just starting a physical routine expect to do three, four, or five of these. If you have been exercising and are trying this as a change you will likely do several more. 

How often are you to do this? Ideally, six days a week is your goal. If that is not possible due to your schedule or physical state do it three times a week. 

Stay with it. I do this as a daily morning routine. It’s the first thing I do when getting out of bed. There is a park and playground near my house so I jog and walk there and back. Using playground equipment saves me money on equipment and gym memberships. 

This is a simplistic, not easy, routine. It should not take that long. Depending upon how far you walk/jog and how many Body Builders you do your routine should not take more than 40 minutes. As your health improves and you get stronger you will do more repetitions. This, of course, will take longer. 

Do this for one month. One month will give you time to see changes in your routine and body. This will also make a habit out of the exercise time block. One month to feel and be healthier, four weeks. You can do that. 

Train hard and train safe.

Calisthenics for Strength

 

 With spring just around the corner I felt this reader had an excellent question for fitness training. One reader asked how to transition from calisthenics to weightlifting. Let’s consider a few things before jumping into that.

Exercise, be it body weight or external weights as resistance, is an excellent ectivity for your body. It improves flexibility, muscle tone, cardiovascular health, morale and mental outlook among many other benefits. Exercise is also the most under prescribed anti-depressant.

Calisthenics is an exercise protocol of using one’s own weight as the resistance for the exercises. This has many benefits. One being that you can take your routine almost anywhere to complete it. I used a local playground as the tools needed for my calisthenics routine for years. Pull-ups, dips, squats, jumping and more were all done using the equipment at the playground. It is also near a running track so I also added cardio. 

I was able to maintain my weight at 220 to 230 pounds during these years. I train to be larger than average. Your goals may differ. Still, if there is a park or playground with monkey bars you have all you need. 

Think about how the military trains its personnel. Everyone begins calisthenics in boot camp. While on active duty many units do daily physical training or PT. This PT is mainly body weight based or employs equipment that all participants have. 

Consider weight lifting for a moment. In this one uses weights external ti the body to increase load and tension on the muscles. One can work every part of their body with weights. The difference in outcomes for lifting comes down to your goals and the necessary training methods. 

Calisthenics will certainly improve your fitness levels as well as strength and stamina. Using your body and simple equipment you can hone your body into an exercise machine. When in the military I’d do sets of pushups yo surpass 100, sit-ups and crunches, squats and lunges for legs, and then running for overall cardio. Calisthenics were more than adequate for fitness. 

Weightlifting can take you past the point at which calisthenics stops. You can continue to overload your muscles with greater amounts of weight as your strength grows. 

Now, transitioning between the two. All it takes is a gym membership or some equipment at home to make the switch. How to start is a point to understand.

When I switched I focused on the core lifts which are called compound exercises. A compound exercise uses multiple joints and multiple muscles to perform. These include benchpress, squat, deadlift, bent or seated row, lat pull down or pull-ups, upright row, and shoulder press. There are more, but this should make it clear. 

By building a routine around compound movements you can efficiently work your entire body in a shorter period of time. For instance, a basic full body routine would include squats, bench press, bent row, and either upright row or shoulder press. These exercises done properly will work your entire body including your core. 

This type of routine is typically started at three sets of 10 repetitions each set. A set is the number of repetitions completed. Three sets is conventionally considered enough to fully work the targeted muscle group.

After achieving some level of experience with weights there are intensity techniques you can add to make the workout more effective. You can add sets or change the repetition numbers to achieve different goals. 

Optimally, you can combine the two training styles and tailor your routine to include both calisthenics and weights. Many consider this optimal. At my gym it is a regular thing for somebody to do pull-ups and pushups as part of their lifting routine. Another excellent body weight exercise seen is dips. This is considered the squat for the upper body. Years ago, I would benchpress, isolate my triceps, and then do dips. The results were outstanding. My physical power and stamina were beyond my contemporaries. 

As to which exercise style is better comes down to your goals and how you best like to train. I am not going to tell you that weights are better as I’ve used both techniques. Each method fills and filled a specific need at that time.

Selecting the load you use is entirely based on you. Use a weight that makes you do just less than the number of repetitions you are aiming for. Keep at it until you can perform the number of repetitions you have selected. That is, try to pick a weight that will allow you to get close to three sets of 10 reps. When you can complete 10 reps across all sets then increase the weight by 10%. 

A balanced routine is one that will work your body completely and keep push muscles worked as equally well as pull muscles. Such a program or routine will ideally include the following five areas: 

Aerobic Futness

Strength Training

Core Exercises

Balance Training

Flexibility and Stretching

Schedule your workouts so that you have enough time to fully recover before lifting again. Not recovering between sessions can lead to a condition called over training. This is when you are breaking muscle tissue faster than your body can recover and rebuild. Signs of this include:

Increased Muscle Pain

Injuries

Getting Weaker not Stronger

If you find your fitness levels decreasing improve your diet with more protein and carbohydrates or increase the off days between exercising. 

Warming up your muscles is always advised. Take some time to get the blood pumping prior to undertaking the full workload. By doing a target exercise with light weights you increase joint lunrication. This, of course, protects your joints from excess wear and tear. This will also get blood moving through the target muscles. It primes them for the heavy excertion you are planning.

Use proper equipment for your safety and health. Form is the actual movement you perform the exercise in. Many lifts seem simple, almost elementary. There are, however, details that you must be aware of. Going through the proper form for all of the exercises you may use woul be chapters in a book. Thankfully, there are a plethora of quick videos and articles available for free that will give you all the details you need. I have also detailed the squat in the piece linked here (https://famfitfun.blogspot.com/2020/07/squats-and-knees-training-legs-is.html?m=1).

Before you begin any new routine endure that you are capable of withstanding the stresses involved. Talk to your doctor about what you’re planning. It is better to know where your overall health line is than to push your luck.